The West Liberty-Salem girl's cross country team is headed to the State Cross Country Meet after finishing 4th in the Division III Southwest Regional meet on Saturday,  This will be the program's sixth trip as a team to the state meet.  The Tigers were led by 3rd place finisher, Grace Adams and 7th place Reghan Bieleski.  The Big Orange improves is record to 129-21 on the season.  

The Big Orange boys team also competed in the Division III regional.  The boys failed to qualify for the state meet as a team after a 10th place finish, but the team will be represented at the meet by Nick Williams who qualified with a 10th place finish.

The OHSAA State Cross Country meet will be held Saturday November 5th at National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio.

Two local teams will continue the 2016 football campaign as they have qualified for the post season playoffs.  Mechanicsburg and West Liberty-Salem both earned berths in Division IV Region 24.  The Indians are the #3 seed and will host Miami East, the 6th seed Friday night at 7:30pm.  The Tigers earned the 8th seed after squeezing into the playoff during the final week.  WL-S will travel to Marion Local to take on the Flyers, who are the #1 seed in the region.  The Tigers and Flyers will also kick-off at 7:30 pm on Friday.  

The Big Orange High School Boys Cross Country finished 8th out of 25 teams at the Anna Rocket Invitational over the weekend.

"The team is really gaining traction and confidence each and every day, and with the team performances these past three weeks we've put ourselves into a great spot heading into the post season. I'm ecstatic that our team is now putting everything together when it matters the most." according to Coach Mike Louden following the race.  Coach Louden said that next week if the first of the teams post season goals, and that goal is to capture an 8th straight OHC title.  The program currently has 27 league titles overall.  

Couch Louden continues to praise his runners noting that Nick Williams is now running uncomfortable and is mixing it up with the top runners in the state, in doing so he has put our team into a great position heading into the most important meets of the year.

Noah, Cade, Charlie, Isaac, Bryan, and Caleb all had outstanding races too!" said Coach Louden.

Nick Williams 16:46.8 CPR 10th
Noah Smith 17:36.6 CPR 35th
Cade Clerico 18:15.2 CPR 65th
Charlie Williams 18:29.7 SPR 76th
Isaac Smith 18:53.5 SPR 99th
Bryan Woods 19:22.0 SPR 129th
Caleb Siegenthaler 20:12.4 CPR 171st  



The Lady Tigers also competed in the Anna Invitational posting a 5th place finish out of 17 teams.  Freshman Grace Adams led the Big Orange with a career personal best time of 19:16.3.  The time also marks the fastest 5K time for a freshman in WL-S school history.  Lydia Moel ran a personal best 21:27 for a 35th place time, Payton Umphries finished 40th(21:41), Kiania Reames was 50th(21:59).  Jenna Magnuson was 58th posting a time of 22:11, Lauren Fowler finished 80th(22:45).  Other Tiger finishers listed were:

Sarah Painter     121st     24:05
Savannah Weaver  129th     24:21  CPR
Anna Louden    144th    24:48
Tory Pawelko  162th      25:32 CPR
Taylor Henault 189th   27:01
Mikaela Holdridge  201st  28:33 CPR

Coach Ann Vogel was praised her freshman runners who led the 16th ranked (D3) Tigers.  Coach Vogel said that with several Division 1 teams in the field it was a good test for the post season.  "There is always room for improvement, but I like the momentum we have right now"

Both squads compete in the OHC Championships October 15th at Cedarville University.